Action and Reaction, the Guardians
by Nightsmoke
Summary: The Guardians of the Vongola react differently to the same things, each in their own, unique way. A four-chapter series
1. Chapter 1

All characters © Amano Akira

_Summary:_ The Guardians of the Vongola react differently to the same things, each in their own, unique way.

* * *

_Action and Reaction, the Guardians_

_**First Kills**_

The common practices of law had never held sway of the mafia, then or now. Possession documents, financial lawsuits, and collateral damages were all something normal people had to worry about. The Italian mafia, however, had never done anything conventionally. It had always been a place where killings were unprecedented and unaddressed. Murder, to them, was not seen as a crime, but merely as a necessary procedure (partially because no one in the mafia could seem to get along anyway).

The only difference now was that they were younger.

With the exception of Belphegor, Mukuro, and the young mafiosos trained for the lifestyle from birth, everyone in the Vongola had spent at least one time in the bushes as their insides clenched from the aftermath. Murder was something that no one, least of all _children,_ had a right to bear. But since when was anything in the mafia just?

Byakuran had been Tsuna's first. After returning to the past, Tsuna had dropped five pounds. Only Reborn had noticed that he had begun to wear his mittens during the day; they covered up the bite marks that Tsuna would make during the night, when he would stuff his hands into his mouth to stifle the screams upon waking.

Hibari's hadn't been mafia-related--a folly on his part. His first victim had been one of his classmates, when he was fifteen. He had bitten the student to death, literally. With the assistance of Reborn the school had dropped Hibari's charges of third-degree murder and had paid reparations to the victim's stricken family. But Hibari didn't touch his tonfa for a week afterward, and he had begun to wash his hands raw every day. It was Dino who had approached him then--Tsuna to this day doesn't know what was said, but Hibari had returned to his old, recalcitrant self soon after.

The others' firsts came later.

There was a reason that Gokudera was a mid-range fighter. The results of close-contact dynamite were too ghastly to bear. It was a brawl toward the end of their stay at Namimori, like so many of the brawls that Gokudera had gotten into over such trivial matters. Someone had looked at his precious Tenth the wrong way, or had accidentally bumped into him without apologizing; it was always the same. One time, like Hibari, Gokudera had gone too far, and in a vermilion cloud of anger had forgotten that dynamite should never, ever be used in close proximity. Gokudera's stomach, already weakened by the continuous presence of his sister, couldn't take it. He had to be hospitalized with an IV drip for two days because no matter what he ate, it just came right back up.

Yamamoto's, however, had been purely intentional, and had been carried out with a cold, deadly precision that Tsuna knew he'd need time to get used to. But even wolves in sheep's clothing like Yamamoto couldn't remain remorseless, no matter who the person was. He had eventually sought out the Varia, namely Superbi Squalo, for coping advice. The odd thing enough was that Squalo, for all of his screaming antics and macho repartee, was able to help. Tsuna knew that Yamamoto saw Squalo as somewhat of a role model, and he was secretly glad that somewhere under those rows of fangs Squalo had some sympathy.

Ryohei now had a secret to keep from Kyoko, for the first time since middle school. She didn't like violence, even if it was necessary violence, so in the future Ryohei would simply not tell her when he had to kill. For all of his talk of manliness and glorifying battles, he hated the actual results. The first time he had seen the light leave someone's eyes he felt like he had been punched in the stomach. It was not his own welfare he worried about--in fact, Ryohei didn't even consider his own aftermath. But for the life of him, he didn't know how to tell his little sister that he had killed a man today.

Two decades had transformed Lambo. He had once been a raucous, crying kid in a cow jumpsuit who begged for milk instead of drawing it from his own udders. Tsuna, though he would die before mentioning this to his other guardians, considered Lambo to be the most terrifying Guardian in his family. Two decades had turned him into a killer. Lambo had grown more than any of them, excluding Tsuna himself. It had been to protect Ipin the first time, when Lambo had been seventeen. He had literally fried the threat, with no real damages to his sanity following. His constant childhood mantra of "tolerate" proved to make him the best coper of them all.

_to be continued.._


	2. Chapter 2

All characters © Amano Akira

_Summary:_ The Guardians of the Vongola react differently to the same things, each in their own, unique way.

* * *

_Action and Reaction, the Guardians_

**_Getting Sick_**

Illness, in the mafia, was underestimated drastically. The big bad mafia-dons had no time to pay any heed to physical health; they had more important issues to worry about. But when they did fall ill, it was hell all around. Getting sick wasn't manly, in their eyes. This was one reason Irie Shouchi, who had a brilliant mind but a list of allergies longer than a Chinese phonebook was considered a pansy by so many in the family. Tasteless bravado was often the cause of exacerbation, and eventually Shamal had to be called in (complaining the whole while about how treating women was so much easier).

Regarding how they dealt with things, illness was a united front for the Guardians. They all acted pretty much the same way.

Tsuna usually didn't mind being sick. It gave him the opportunity to duck out of classes, not to mention the satisfaction of his mother waiting on him hand and foot. Unfortunately, those had been the good old days. These days, Tsuna had taken to hiding the mild colds that plagued him ever few months or so: stifling the coughs, resting between classes and meetings, drinking fluids until he was urinating ten times a day. The reason? His right hand man was even more overbearing and doting than the most worrisome of mothers. So Tsuna's illnesses went unattended to and passed after a few miserable days. The only one who observed these periods of surreptitious indisposition was Reborn, and he knew better than to say anything.

Namimori wasn't a petri dish. Hibari Kyouya knew this well, and would write students countless dismissal slips during the dead winter months so that his school would remain somewhat germ-free. The only exception to this rule was himself, since he classified illnesses as tendencies of the grass-eaters below him and not suitable for the likes of _his _caliber. As such, Hibari's colds that he never wanted to admit he got usually went neglected until they became serious enough to require hospitalization. Getting sick was something that herbivores did, and Hibari would rather die than publicly display such weak proclivities. Denial was an ugly thing: the colds, untreated, usually turned into flus, which turned into bronchitis (and on two occasions pneumonia), and Shamal would give Hibari the same lecture over and over again about paying at least a modicum of attention to his body. It was his own fault, really.

Gokudera either thought he was invincible or didn't care about his body either way. Although his stomach was somewhat damaged by his sister, he was oddly immune to most GI bugs (probably because of this fact) and was typically prone to respiratory-related maladies and high fevers. He was one of those people who would continue to go about the day with a temperature well above 38 insisting that nothing was wrong, he was perfectly fine, no he was _not_ sick. He had a precious duty to the Tenth, but it was the Tenth who ended up worrying about him when Gokudera was flat on his back a few days later.

Yamamoto didn't try to hide it like Gokudera did, but he did a _hell _of a lot of undermining, which was in some ways worse. His "slight headaches" were migraines and his light comments of a "tickle in his throat" meant that his tonsils were red and swollen to twice their original size. He would scratch absently at the back of his cowlick and laugh his typical laugh, and then the next day he would be absent from school. Thank god he had a father at home who had some common sense.

Lambo's illnesses tended to be more seldom and serious. It was part of the thunder guardian's duty to take everything into himself and to conduct it as if it were electricity, tolerating it and waiting for it to pass through. On one occasion he had been training with Belphegor, who wasn't aware that his knives had more bacteria on them than a septic tank. It had been Squalo of all people who'd found Lambo, delirious, and had spent the next two hours screaming at Bel about cleaning his blades. Last year it had been an asthma attack of frightening acuteness. When Lambo was sick, it was usually too severe to pull off any sort of macho act, and that saved Shamal the trouble of "the talk," as he had come to call it.

Mukuro didn't _get_ sick. It was the strangest thing. In all of his ten years, Tsuna had not once seen the man so much as sneeze. Perhaps Mukuro went somewhere private to do his suffering, but Tsuna doubted it. Mukuro had remained in a glass tank for the better part of five years, and perhaps that had had some effect on his immunity.

Ryohei was the most hazardous when sick. He would ardently insist he was fine, then proceed to splutter over everyone and get half of the base sick with what he had. He had no self-restraint mentally or physically; he was a firm believer that nothing should be stifled (much to the dismay of those around him). When Ryohei fell ill, small vacations were booked, hotels were rented, and earplugs were purchased. He always did things to the extreme.

They always wondered why the girls remained so healthy. But in truth, the girls merely knew how to treat their bodies with respect--an art that the boys ultimately and miserably failed in.


	3. Chapter 3

All characters © Amano Akira

_Summary:_ The Guardians of the Vongola react differently to the same things, each in their own, unique way.

* * *

_Action and Reaction, the Guardians_

_**Nightmares**_

Box weapons, dying will flames, swords, and Berettas existed for the sole purpose of inflicting injury. Even if they were used to protect, they did so by force. The mafia was a violent society and none too sympathetic to its enemies. Granted, the Vongola had seen things that most had not, even if it had been against their will. People were killed brutally every day, stress levels were high, humanity levels low.

Sleep came none too easily for anyone.

He would awaken from these dreams, sometimes sweating, sometimes not, the bedsheets always tangled, and creep downstairs to the kitchen for a snack. Eating in the middle of the night soothed Tsuna and took his mind off of his disturbing subconscious cogitations. He usually wouldn't remember what the dreams had been about in the morning, but he would wake up with food crumbs around his mouth and know that he had had to go down there at one point in the middle of the night. Thinking back, he couldn't remember when his dreams had stopped being of Kyoko-chan and had turned into something darker.

Hibari didn't dream much. He was a highly uncreative individual and believed in plain reality where everything was straightforward and made sense. Nightmares were caused by stress and other herbivorous emotions twisting the sense of order, and it infuriated him that he should have one every few months or so. Others wouldn't consider his dreams on these occasions nightmare material, but Hibari was in fact terrified of these seldom but disturbing nightly visits. They were always the same: Namimori in chaos or ruins, or an herbivore (usually Tsuna or Mukuro) standing on top of his defeated body. He was afraid of them because they were cruelly accurate: they showed him what he feared the most.

Gokudera tended to scream himself awake. It was alright, since he lived alone in a studio close to Namimori and no one was around to hear. His dreams did not often make sense, and that disjointed, jumbled quality was what scared him the most. They were a conglomerate of different people, places, and languages all meshed together. Sometimes aliens, too. The nightmares that made him scream the loudest were the ones about his father, and the ones where people he loved exploded into millions of tiny pieces. Or turned into aliens.

When waking from a fading nightmare, Yamamoto goes out to train in his father's dojo with a fixed, concentrated expression on his features. He doesn't often remember the dreams, but he knows that they will fade into the light of the morning dawn if he just busies himself with something else. After all, if they were so easily forgotten they couldn't be _that_ important, right?

Mukuro plays with dreams rather than experiencing them. He enjoys toying with others' sleeping reality, and it is only on one occasion that he gets a taste of his own medicine. As one illusionist to another, Fran is the only one able to give Mukuro some dreams of his own. And Fran can be rather...creative, if the need calls for it. It is one of the only times Mukuro's lost his smile.

One of the few childhood proclivities that still stuck to Lambo like moist cheese was his tendency to cry. It was an almost automatic reaction to anything extreme or distressing...including nightmares. He had them often, these night terrors that reflected his many daytime worries: being hated by those he loved, being a burden, being weak, being killed by Reborn, the list went on. He would call Ipin then, in the nadir of the night with tears streaming down his cheeks and his breath hitching, and she would comfort him. It was one of their more esoteric practices, and one that was strangely sacred to the bond they shared.

Ryohei would train, like Yamamoto; his only indications of ill rest being his habit of waking up at ungodly hours to do so. He would run and run, circling the hushed quiet blocks of Namimori as the dew settled on the grass and the crickets chirped ubiquitously.

Strangely though, the nightmares made reality a little easier to deal with, since the worst possible scenarios only manifested when the sun fell to the bottom of the sky.


	4. Chapter 4

All characters © Amano Akira

_Summary:_ The Guardians of the Vongola react differently to the same things, each in their own, unique way.

* * *

_Action and Reaction, the Guardians_

_**Hugs**_

Since ninety-nine percent of the mafia's population was male, hugs were a rarity. The handful of female persons which included Bianchi, Oregano, Luce, and Lal Mirch were not exactly what you'd call the touchy-feely type. And between the men, any physical contact besides close-range combat earned you a reputation as a homosexual bastard.

However the ones with those reputations rarely kept it, since the ones receiving the contact never found the heart to keep the rumor going.

Gokudera would splutter whenever Haru squeezed him around the middle and push her away, protesting loudly that he didn't need such things. Haru just didn't seem to get the message, and continued to "glomp" him whenever she was particularly enthusiastic about something. Or maybe, Gokudera was coming to realize, as an unseen smile tinctured his features, she had understood the message a long time ago and _he_ was the one who hadn't.

Hibari didn't like people touching him. It was just a fact: there was no need for physical contact in the world of animals besides killing and fornicating. No one dared lay a hand on him, despite the fact that his austere and small-boned form looked somehow incredibly lonely and pitiful. The only people who had attempted to hug him, with success, were Chrome and Kyoko--for reasons circling around the need to thank him for helping Tsuna with something or another. A look of surprise would cross his face as their arms wrapped around his thin shoulders, and he would wait patiently for them to break away. Hibari's justification for not biting them to death on the spot with the cool steel of his tonfa was _only_ because he didn't like to use violence on women, that was all. It wasn't as if he liked it or anything.

Ipin didn't hug very often, since her culture respected personal space and its boundaries. Lambo, however, was rather clingy and practically gave out a "hug me" aura every time he was stressed about one thing or another. Ipin didn't usually give in to his light emerald puppy-eyed look, but when she did she her embraces were soft and warm, not angular or limp. Sadly she was the only one who ever bothered to hug Lambo, as he had no parents or local family, so he came to treasure her touch.

Yamamoto returned the hugs given to him, embracing them fully. He was always the warmest of the guardians, if not the slightest bit perverted (though he kept this latter fact to himself). Since he spent most of his time with the mafia and its men nowadays, the testosterone proved to be a little overwhelming. Could one blame him for wanting to feel a nice female body pressed against his own?

Ryohei reacted in a similar way to Gokudera when hugged. The only difference was that Ryohei turned pinker than a strawberry, making his flaxen-colored hair stand even whiter against his florid face. Hugs from Kyoko were alright, since she was blood, but he always treated hugs from Hana, Chrome, or Haru extremely awkwardly. Sometimes he would pat their heads, not sure of what to do, and smile crookedly before hastily making an exit of some sort.

Mukuro was all about invading personal space. He was not a man of lewd mien, but he had no respect for boundaries, mental _or _physical. The Vendice had never respected his with all of those experiments, so Mukuro was under the impression that it was alright to treat other people in the same manner. But despite this, strangely enough, he shied away from genuine gestures of affection. He didn't mind the glomps from Ken or even the reluctant touches of Chrome; those were quotidian occurrences. It was rare that someone other than those two presented him with a heartfelt hug, but it had happened once or twice. In those instances Mukuro would stiffen, laugh his quiet laugh, and brush off the gesture. He told himself, _it's normal; who wouldn't want to hug me?_ and quickly busied himself with something else, hands idly fidgeting with the ends of his ponytail.

You would think he'd splutter. That was generally Sawada Tsunayoshi's default reaction to anything new and unknown. The flailing, the stuttering, the little exclamation of "Hee!"-- Tsuna knew how to freak out from years of experience. So no one expected anything different when Kyoko gave him her first hug. Even Kyoko. But on the contrary, Tsuna had smiled winsomely and reached up a hand to cup her hair in. It was Kyoko who came closest to losing it then, and she felt herself growing red. Tsuna didn't mind; he merely gave her shoulders a squeeze and broke away, thanking her again.

It wasn't that his inner-Tsuna wasn't jumping for joy then, for he was. Tsuna just had to show his family that he was growing up, acting responsibly, taking charge. Besides, Kyoko's embrace had not come as a surprise. He already knew that she cared for him and he fully returned the love, his love for them all, with feelings so strong that no hug could engender.

_end._


End file.
